The Buddha's foster mother offers a
cloth, which the Buddha gives to Venerable Ajita, the future Buddha

According to the sources in the
Buddhist texts, especially the Commentaries, which were compiled by later
writers after the Buddha's passing away, it seems that the Buddha went to visit
Kapilavatthu many times.

This picture depicts one of those
visits. The Pathamasambodhi states that it was his second visit. The woman
sitting in front of the Buddha is Pajapati Gotami, the Buddha's aunt, being the
younger sister of the Buddha's mother. When Mahamaya died, King Suddhodana took
her as his wife.

According to the story, Pajapati
Gotami, realizing that when the Buddha went to Kapilavatthu on his first visit
she had not offered anything to him, on the second visit brought two pieces of
cotton cloth, each 14 sork (forearm lengths) in length and 7 sork in width, to
offer to the Buddha. The Pathamasambodhi states that the cotton of the cloth was
yellow, like gold. The Queen had planted the cotton herself, and it grew a dark
yellow color. She spun and wove the cotton herself and, putting it onto a golden
tray, offered it to the Buddha.

The Queen was disappointed when
the Buddha would not receive the cloth, and went to see Venerable Ananda to tell
him what had happened. Ananda went to see the Buddha and asked him to receive
it. Once again, the Buddha would not receive it, telling the Queen to offer it
to one of the monks in the Order, but not one of them would receive it. There
was only one monk, sitting at the end of the line of monks, newly ordained, who
would receive it. His name was Ajita. He was still unenlightened, but, according
to the Pathamasambodhi, in the future he would be Metteya, the next Buddha to
save the world.

The reason the Buddha would not
receive Pajapati Gotami's cloth was because he wanted to show the great worth of
the Order, in that even a newly ordained monk who keeps the precepts is worthy
of offerings from Buddhists. If he had not done this people would think that one
should give offerings only to the Buddha, a view which would mean that the monks
would live with difficulty after the Buddha had passed away.